An interesting fact about the small town eastern Canadian universities is that they have recently banded together the form the "Maple League of Canadian Universities".
http://mapleleague.ca/
The charter members are:
- Bishops (Lennoxville QC)
- Mount Allison (Sackville NB)
- Acadia (Wolfville NS)
- Saint FX (Antigonish NS)
They seem to be trying to define themselves within the Canadian university context, dominated as it is by large provincial universities based in the major Canadian cities. This is an interesting initiative, and it will be interesting to see if any other similar universities will try to join this group (Trent for example).
As for the culture of small university towns, the focus tends to be around the university, especially for sports, and it is interesting to note in these four particular cases just how important the university football teams are to their respective communities.
I can speak to Sackville since it is less than 50 km from Moncton, and I tend to go down to the football games whenever I can. It isn't just the student body who comes out to these games, it's the whole damned town. Everyone is wearing garnet & gold colours (usually a scarf), there is a pep band playing in the stands, everyone is standing around socializing and watching the game. It's like a scene out of the 1950's. The atmosphere is terrific!
It's interesting that this year Bishops is transferring from the Quebec Conference to the AUS, joining it's Maple League brethren and Saint Mary's University. It will be interesting to see how this pans out........